Barcelona, Inter and Valencia headline 2019 Lunar New Year kit-watch

Clubs from around the world are joining in on the Lunar New Year celebrations!

Teams from around the world are updating their kits with a certain Lunar New Year flair, with Barcelona, Inter Milan and Valencia C.F headlining the celebrations with special-edition matchday jerseys.

As many countries around the world, including China, Vietnam, Korea and Singapore, celebrate the beginning of the Year of the Pig, football teams from across the globe have made an effort to engage with their Asian fan bases through special Lunar New Year releases.

Even more reason to have watched this morning’s 1-1 drawn 'El Clasico' in the first leg of the Copa del Rey semi-final, FC Barcelona played out the match in a once-off Lunar New Year kit, with the players’ names on the back of their jerseys appearing above their according Mandarin translation, making for quite the satisfying aesthetic.

Holding a stake as being the first international professional football club to visit China, as occurred in 1978, Inter Milan have made a similar celebratory effort with their matchday kit. In their 1-0 loss to Bologna on Monday, the Nerazzurri entirely replaced the standard player names with their Mandarin translation.

In the upper reaches of the La Liga table, Valencia C.F also followed Barcelona’s template for their Lunar New Year kits, with the players’ names appearing twice – once in Mandarin. The special kits were worn in their 2-2 draw with Barcelona on Sunday.

Paris Saint-Germain are another huge club who’ve gotten in on the act, updating their online store to allow fans to purchase the 2018/19 home kit with the players’ names in Mandarin.

Manchester United are also set to release an entire Lunar New Year range, with keen-eyed fans noting the black-and-gold sweater worn by Ole Gunnar Solskjaer at his press conference in the lead-up to the Red Devil’s 1-0 win over Leicester.